In our attempt to understand God’s ways in the midst of our suffering there are two common temptations which often fight to claim the higher ground in our mind.
Second Temptation: The Temptation to Remake God in Our Image
If our conception of God is that he is only, or predominantly, love, and by this we mean that he does only what we perceive as good (for example, whatever does not involve pain), then irrational suffering tempts us to change our view of God to match our experience.
An example of this is found in Nancy Eiesland’s influential book The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. The author, a college professor in Atlanta and a lifelong sufferer of congenital bone defect, demanded a theology that “locates us [the disabled] at the speaking center.” But herein lies the age-old problem of man: demanding to be at the center of all things, and thereby rejecting a God-centered worldview.
To locate the person with a disability at the center Eiesland could not accept the plain reading of the Bible, because the God revealed there did not seem to fit neatly with her experience. Therefore, she longed for an epiphany that would
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